Wednesday, July 18, 2012

It’s time for us to draw a line in the sand: Chicago
educators won’t be satisfied simply with more money that will contribute to the
decline of the district finances. We must demand to be compensated fairly, but
also that the district redirect its priorities back to the classroom and away
from poorly thoughtful out political shenanigans. The current conflict has
illustrated the path to this solution—the CPS current leadership cannot and
will not ever place “children first” and so more than a favorable contract, we
need a board elected and overseen by the communities whose children actually
attend Chicago Public Schools.

Today, a fact-finding panel tasked with reporting on a small
portion of the issues involved in the on-going battle between the Chicago
Teachers Union and the Chicago Public Schools appointed board and leadership
will issue a report on its findings. The report recommended approximately 18.2%
more teacher compensation to pay for the mayor’s proposed “Longest School Day”.

This fact-finding report that the mayor, city and district
governance are tearing apart is actually a report that they themselves demanded
through millions of dollars of lobbying of the state legislature.

It appears that CPS will continue to emphasize their
inability to pay for basic instructional costs in the district and CTU wasn’t
really interested in the fact-finding at all in the first place as CTU’s key
issues such as class size and length of school day and year were not subject to
either the fact finding process or required to be part of the negotiations due
to state laws pushed through by CPS.

CPS will ask for either no major pay increase or massive
layoffs.

CTU would be wise to redirect the conversation to teachers’
priorities—humane learning conditions for the students we teach each day. We
should emphasize that CPS’ interpretation of the budget—that salaries and
pensions are bankrupting the system is categorically false—those portions of
the budget are at an all-time low. The budget crunch has been triggered by
financial mismanagement in a system that is designed to keep educators and
community as far away from management as possible.

The more I watch the process, the more I’m sure that we have
no choice but to strike. This isn’t a question of money (which we could
negotiate to a middle point). It’s a question of difference in philosophy. CPS
believes that it should have unilateral control over all teaching and learning
issues. It believes that privatization and the increasing diversion of funds
from neighborhood schools and classroom level resources to magic bullet
programs, turnarounds and charter schools as in its best interests. It’s not
interested in providing a teacher for each classroom on the first day of each
school year.

The fact finding
process reinforces this notion. It demonstrates that even when CPS gets exactly what they want—a high threshold for
strike, the ability to unilaterally impose many working conditions, a neutral
fact-finding condition, they still cannot even be motivated to come up with a remotely
thoughtful budget or proposals that will allow the independent arbiter any path
out of the conflict. The solutions put forth that overworked, overstressed
people to work more for no compensation or for students to face inhumane class
sizes are nothing that anyone with a care for students could possibly endorse.

Since 1995, the district’s operation has revolved around a
simple question, “What is in the best interest of the Mayor and his cronies?”

We must return the operating question to be “What is in the
best interests of the students?”

Let me make this clear. I
don’t want more money.I don’t need
to work more hours. I accounted for my school related hours three years ago
and found that I worked between 80-100 hours each week. I cannot extended my
day and continue to serve my students in the exemplary fashion I demand of
myself.

I want the Chicago Public Schools to bargain in good faith
not only with the CTU and us, its members, but with students, parents and
communities to the benefit of kids.

We will not negotiate for with those who would terrorize our
kids, and we will compromise nothing when it comes to the best interests of
their children.

In that spirit, we must redouble our efforts to remove the
appoint governance structures that have poisoned our schools and our city. We
must be prepared to do damage to our own families and risk our livelihoods to
fight the board. We must be the barrier between our students and those who
would injure them and our entire city.

Due to poor management of taxpayer dollars, CPS manufactures
its own budget crisis every year. This results in worse educational supports
for the vast majority of students while privatizing options continue to be
increasingly supported. There is no scientific justification for these
priorities; rather it is a strategy for manufactured crisis to force policy
rather than the best interests of students driving policy and resource allocation.
My hope is that this work will motivate the development of a people’s budget
movement in Chicago Public Schools to oppose the current corporate structure.

9 quick things about
the current budget and then some explanations:

1.The district is taking in $5.3 billion in
revenue from local (47.6% of the total), state (34.7%), and national (17.6%) support.
There is an additional .8 % coming from interest income.

2.Only $4.7 billion (88.8%) of the $5.3 billion even
makes it to the General Operating Fund while 9.3% goes to debt service, much of
it going to clouted banks (assigned by a School Board appointed with bankers
and business people). An additional 1.9% goes to the capital fund for building
and maintaining school facilities.

3.Both the percentage of the budget devoted to
teacher salaries and combined teacher salaries + pensions have declined significantly
since FY2004 (Salaries 48.43%-->37.65%, combined 56.3%-->44.30%). This
year’s projected decline is the highest on record. The growth has been in
charter school tuition (which accounts for a portion, but not the balance of
the decline in teacher salaries), and “other fixed charges” (p. 126-127). In accounts,
Contracts, Equipment, Transportation, and Contingencies are rising this year
(p15)

4.The pension payments have stayed steady or
declined while obligations have ballooned. This is natural with any debt that
is not responsibility repaid. The vast majority of the pension “crisis” is
caused by CPS and to a lesser degree, the state, diverting pension funding
toward failed programs like High School Transformation. Accounting for the
simple refusal to pay, they do not make up a major portion of the financial
crisis on their own.

5.Despite the discussion of $120 million in
additional funds for school level budgeting, the actual outlay to schools has
declined this year (-0.3%). Instead, the Chief Education Officer (15.3%), Chief
Administrative Officer (22.8%), Portfolio (1368.0%) , Talent (35.5%), Law (10.1%)
and Network (31.6%) offices have grown (p13 of the budget)

6.Some of the above is explained by the shifting
of responsibilities, but that still represents a shifting of funds away from
school and LSC based oversight to central office oversight.

7.The Talent Office is still completely unable to
develop a navigatable staffing framework and that results in less competitive
hiring by CPS and improper/inadequate staffing that severely damages students.
So they received more money to oversee.

8.The grouping of family and community engagement,
LSC relations and governmental affairs suggests a priority on attempting to
lobby and attain buy-in from communities rather than truly collaborative
efforts that are respectful to parent voice.

9.The deficit is at least in some part real, but
should be viewed in the context of a CPS finance department that has been
hundreds of millions of dollars off in their deficit projections every single
year.

What is the budget?

The budget is a document that CPS is mandated to release
each fiscal year to lay out the expected revenue and planned expenditures for
public consumption. It is then voted on by the CPS Board of Education. Since
the Board of Education is non-elected, neither the board nor central office is
required to actually listen to any of public input. Nevertheless, CPS is
legally required release a draft budget in June, hold public hearings and then
the board must pass a final version at the following board meeting.

If they aren’t
integrated into the process, why have the hearings at all? Why testify at
hearings where people running the system aren’t listening?

CPS is required by law to have the hearings. They also use
the opportunity to “sell” their budget to the public. I have presented several
years at the hearings. The point is not to move CPS, it’s to build community
knowledge and confidence that we can build our own budget. Two years ago, I
received my termination notice from my teaching position at Julian High School
due to my work supporting student organizing. Even though it was very
difficult, I testified through my tears to ensure the story was told.

How is the budget
prepared and organized?

The process for preparing the budget, despite public outcry,
remains almost completely opaque. In examining what is produced in the draft,
it appears that the previous years’ budgets are used as a template with all of
their underlying assumptions. Then new budget priorities are integrated and a
narrative that decries a huge deficit, praises central office for cutting
expenditures, and blames teachers for wanting their promised retirement
contract honored is produced regardless of the current status of the budget.
This results in a budget with the following portions:

·Letter from the CEO

·General overview that puts the current FY budget
in comparison with the previous years